I look at companies as businesses, while Wall Street analysts look for quarterly earnings performance. I buy assets and potential productivity. Wall Street buys earnings, so they miss a lot of things that I see in certain situations.
Carl Icahn

We’re both on a life raft right now. And it’s sinking. It doesn’t matter who got on first. We have to do something to save ourselves.
Carl Icahn

Ideas comes to you… not necessarily working and sitting at a desk…
Carl Icahn

In takeovers, the metaphor is war. The secret is reserves. You must have reserves stretched way out ahead. You have to know that you could buy the company and not be stretched.
Carl Icahn

My opinion is that, philosophically, I’m doing the right thing in trying to shake up some of these managements. It’s a problem in America today that we are not nearly as productive as we should be. That’s why we have the balance-of-payments problems. It’s like the fall of Rome, when half the population was on the dole.
Carl Icahn

In this [takeover] game, if you have the stock, you should win. The guy who has the most stock and the fortitude to hold on to it can go ahead and can win this thing. But it’s a tough game.
Carl Icahn

This [takeover] game gets in your blood, though, because when you’re in it, it’s like being in the middle of a tiger hunt, and the tigers are coming at you and you’ve just got a spear.
Carl Icahn

If you can keep your head when all those around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
Carl Icahn

[To the Western Union men] Why are you paying Ben a fee? … Ben is like the general who is leading his army and says, ‘Charge the hill.’ We all followed. We invested. Now the troops are all lying dead. And the general wants to go home and get a fee?
Carl Icahn

[On being told ‘I own some TWA bonds. Maybe some day you’ll get into trouble, and we’ll see what happens.’] If I do, I’ll pay, or you can have the company.
Carl Icahn

[On every time the participants thought they were finished] There are just two more points I want to discuss.
Carl Icahn

[On negotiating governance matters with Donald Trump’s chief financial officer Stephen Bollenbach] Bollenbach said, ‘There’s no way we’re doing this. If we do this and we don’t perform, we’re screwed.’ So I said, ‘You’re correct. If you don’t perform, you’re screwed.’ And I looked at him and he looked at me, and he agreed to sign the deal.
Carl Icahn

I’m a friend of Donald’s [Trump] and I’m trying to avoid [bankruptcy]. But a number of members of the steering committee have dug in, and it will be very tough to keep it out.
Carl Icahn

I’m only in this for the money. I don’t care anything about the paper business.
Carl Icahn

One of the hidden ‘assets’ in many companies is top management: get rid of them and the value goes up. What’s going on in companies these days is absurd. It’s like a corporate welfare state. We’re supporting managements who produce nothing. No, it’s really worse than that. Not only are we paying these drones not to produce, but we’re paying them to muck up the works.
Carl Icahn

[On the board meetings of one company] Literally, half the board is dozing off. The other half is reading the Wall Street Journal. And then they put slides up a lot and nobody can understand the slides and when it gets dark they all doze off. The chief executive officer at that time was a very intimidating sort of guy. A big, tall guy, strong personality, and he was in control of that board. I mean nobody could say anything. I was the only one who owned any stock so I had an interest. I wanted to know what the hell was going on.
Carl Icahn

It is our opinion that the elements of today’s economic environment have combined in a unique way to create large profit making opportunities with relatively little risk…
Carl Icahn

[His job is to eliminate] Layers of bureaucrats reporting to bureaucrats.
Carl Icahn

[On investing $1.4 million and making a profit of $2.7 million on the 330,000 Tappan shares he had bought at around $10] You can’t beat that kind of return.
Carl Icahn

[In 1979 on his uncle Elliot asking ‘What do you know about undervalued companies?’] Look, I’m going to do it. [‘Carl, forget it. I think that you’re taking too many risks.’] In risk there is reward and I’m going to do it.
Carl Icahn

It’s a tough game. There are a lot of times when they’re writing bad things about you and all, so the guy with the big money says, ‘Hey, who needs it?’
Carl Icahn

[On the handful of takeover raiders still actively engaged in the game – Himself, Irwin Jacobs, Jimmy Goldsmith, and T. Boone Pickens] That’s about it. And I don’t know how many times Pickens is coming out any more. If they come up with more legislation, there will be nobody. And that’s really bad for our society.
Carl Icahn